As I’m writing this, strong winds are pounding Tokyo, yesterday it was freezing rain, and I can feel my house shaking from the wind, despite being protected between 2 taller houses. I’m beginning to feel like Dorothy, any minute now and my house will be swept up to Oz. It’s common knowledge that houses in Japan are not built to last more than 30 years or so and my 8 yr old house is no exception. The first floor is made of concrete and from the second floor up it’s wood and dare I say, paper. PAPER!! If I punched hard enough I can put my fist right through the wall and make a hole for cats to come in. No kidding. If you visit your Japanese friend’s house, try it and see.

Tomorrow is 成人の日 seijin no hi or “coming of age day”, a national holiday in Japan. Go and check out all the young girls in kimonos. When I first came to Japan I thought it was nice to see all the young ladies dressed up in traditional Japanese kimono. But I don’t do it anymore. After many years and having had enough experience to judge whether a kimono is wore properly I realized that there are so many people who do it all wrong. It’s almost painful to watch sometimes. Like when I saw a girl in kimono cross her legs! But if you aren’t as jaded as me, you will have a good time seeing all the colorful kimonos. Just visit any nearby shrine.

On Tuesday, it’s back to work. I’d like to say that my holidays have been fruitful but it was a laid back couch-potato-movie-marathon. Zebraman was on TV around new years and I missed it, AGAIN! I’ve been wanted to see that film for ages but I’m too lazy to go and rent it. Anyway, I watched over 25 movies in the last 10 days. Some of the films were crap, most were OK, a few were great. The documentary film about the NY Times crossword puzzle called Wordplay was an entertaining and intelligent film that I thoroughly enjoyed, although it made it feel very stupid and I realized that my vocabulary is like, sh*t. Don’t watch it if you feel insecure about your IQ, you’ll want to hang yourself. Fortunately for me, I watched Idiocracy right after and instantly felt better. The CG animated film Happy Feet took me completely by surprise. I was expecting yet ANOTHER talking animal film but this one was surreal. It’s like Moulin Rouge! meets March of the Penguins. Very bizarre yet refreshing. I cried.

For those of you who follow the same TV shows as I do, the next episode of LOST begins on Feb. 7th. What’s Kate gonna do?!! She gonna run!? Finally a new episode of LOST after a long hiatus, so that they could film the rumored LOST movie. I don’t remember where I heard that rumor so don’t ask me. And Heroes continues on Jan. 22nd. Save the Cheerleader, save the world.